World

Stolen during the colonial era, dozens of Benin bronzes that once decorated the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin will go on show for one last time in Berlin from Saturday before being repatriated to Nigeria.

The renowned pieces of African art and their tumultuous journey up to the exhibition at the Humboldt Museum speak to Germany’s gradual reckoning with the colonial era and the injustices of the past.

The move to return some of the bronzes is the latest in a series of steps taken by Berlin to try to take responsibility for the crimes of the colonial era, including the official recognition in May 2021 of a genocide perpetrated by Germany in Namibia.

Among the items being exhibited are a pair of thrones and a commemorative bust of the monarch of the Kingdom of Benin, in modern-day Nigeria. 

Two rooms in the sprawling museum are being dedicated to the art and the history of the kingdom, an exhibition realised “in close cooperation with partners in Nigeria”, according to the German side.

The removal of the precious objects is explained in the gallery, while educational workshops are also planned around the display.

“When it comes to colonial injustice, I think we’re on the right path,” said Hermann Parzinger, president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which oversees the national museums in the German capital.

“We’re nowhere near the end,” Parzinger added, but the museums were open to continuing on their journey to better understand the past “together” with international partners.

– ‘Lucid view’ –

Thousands of Benin bronzes, metal plaques and sculptures are now scattered around European museums after being looted by the British at the end of the 19th century.

But many museums have begun looking at restituting the artworks.

“Just like the Netherlands and Belgium, Germany has established a museums policy that has a lucid view of the colonial past,” French historian Pascal Blanchard, a specialist on the era, told AFP.

The Africa museum in Tervuren, near Brussels in Belgium, which reopened at the end of 2018, claims to take a “critical look” at the past and the history of the objects collected by Belgian King Leopold II, who for a long time kept the Congo as his private property in the 19th century.

Likewise, the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam takes a long look at the Netherlands’ colonial past.

Unlike some countries, such as France, Germany lost its empire after its defeat in World War One and as such does not have a significant community of people repatriated from Africa.

“It does not play politically, which makes it easier to come to terms with the past,” said Blanchard. 

– Benin City –

Nonetheless, Germany has been the target of criticism in recent years over the origin of many of the objects in its museums, following in the wake of a greater public reckoning with racism.

The outrage grew louder with the opening of the first part of the new Humboldt Museum in December 2020, which is housed in a partially rebuilt Prussian palace.

The highly symbolic location — the former residence of the Hohenzollern dynasty, who oversaw Germany’s colonial adventures — was set to exhibit objects from the period.

Berlin’s Ethnological Museum currently holds 530 items that were taken from the Kingdom of Benin, including some 440 bronzes, considered to be the second-largest collection, behind the British Museum in London.

According to the Berlin museum’s director, Lars-Christian Koch, a portion of the objects will soon be returned, another third will be kept as a loan, and the rest, not on display, will be studied by researchers.

Germany is not the only country to begin returning stolen artefacts. In November 2021, France returned 26 artefacts from the royal treasures of Abomey to the country of Benin, next to Nigeria.

The pressure is also growing on the British Museum, which has around 700 bronzes. It has long argued that its vast trove of foreign artefacts, such as the Elgin Marbles taken from the Parthenon in Athens, are best housed there.

The repatriation of the Benin bronzes from Germany has been a long time coming, according to historian Benedicte Savoy. 

“The requests for return go back to independence in the 1960s. They have been silenced, refused, forgotten for years,” she told AFP.

Nigeria is planning to build a museum in Benin City, in the south of the country, to bring together the works on their return.

As preparations build for next week’s state funeral, members of the public are queuing for hours in London to pay their final respects to Queen Elizabeth II at her lying in state.

Here is how the United Kingdom plans to say goodbye to the late monarch.

– Thursday, September 15 –

The queen begins her first full day lying in state at Westminster Hall, with huge crowds lining the streets to pay their respects.

The 1,000-year-old building is open 24 hours a day until closing at 6:30 am (0530 GMT) on Monday, the day of the queen’s funeral.

The government has warned those waiting that “you will need to stand for many hours, possibly overnight, with very little opportunity to sit down”.

The queue stretched more than three miles (4.8 kilometres) early Thursday, following the River Thames into southeast London, passing Tate Modern museum and Shakespeare’s Globe theatre.

Prince William and his wife Catherine — the new Prince and Princess of Wales — will visit Sandringham, where the queen used to spend Christmas, to look at floral tributes.

Prince Edward, the queen’s youngest son, and his wife Sophie will visit Manchester in northwest England to view the city’s Book of Condolence.

King Charles III will spend the day at his country home, Highgrove, in southwest England.

Members of the armed forces hold overnight rehearsals for Monday’s funeral.

– Friday, September 16 –

Charles and Camilla visit Wales where a service is held at Cardiff’s Llandaff Cathedral and he receives a message of condolence at the Senedd, the Welsh national assembly building.

The visit to Wales completes trips to all four nations that make up the United Kingdom.

– Sunday, September 18 –

At 8:00 pm a minute’s silence will be observed nationwide to mourn the queen and honour her life of service to the country.

– Monday, September 19 –

The queen’s coffin is taken in procession to Westminster Abbey for a state funeral at 11:00 am expected to be watched by millions around the world.

Political leaders and heads of state including US President Joe Biden are expected to attend, sparking a major security operation.

After the funeral, the coffin is taken to Windsor, for a televised committal service at St George’s Chapel, with a private interment planned for later in the evening.

The queen will be interred at the King George VI memorial chapel, alongside her husband, Prince Philip, the ashes of her sister Princess Margaret, their mother, also called Elizabeth, and father, George VI.

South Africa’s parliament has appointed an independent panel to determine whether President Cyril Ramaphosa should face impeachment over the alleged cover-up of a heist at his luxury farmhouse.

National Assembly speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula named the panel in a statement overnight Wednesday. 

It comprises ex-chief justice Sandile Ngcobo, a former prominent high court judge and a university professor.

To remove a president requires a two-thirds majority vote in the National Assembly. Ramaphosa’s African National Congress (ANC) party commands more than two-thirds of the seats, however.

A small opposition party, the African Transformation Movement (ATM), set down the motion that led to the creation of the panel.

The scandal around Ramaphosa erupted in June after South Africa’s former national spy boss, Arthur Fraser, filed a complaint with the police.

He alleged that robbers broke into the president’s farm in the northeast of the country, where they stole $4 million in cash stashed in furniture. 

Ramaphosa hid the robbery from the authorities and instead organised for the robbers to be kidnapped and questioned, and then bribed into silence, Fraser said. 

The president has acknowledged a burglary but denies the accusations of kidnapping and bribery, saying he reported the break-in to the police. 

He has also disputed the amount of money involved, and said the cash came from legitimate sales of game from his animal-breeding farm.

In June, Ramaphosa suspended the country’s graft ombudswoman, a day after she launched a probe into the burglary.

Last week, the High Court dismissed the suspension, saying the “hurried nature” of the move “may have been retaliatory”.

Pressure has been piling on Ramaphosa ahead of an ANC conference in December where he is expected to seek re-election.

The panel will have 30 days to report its findings.

Tens of thousands of mourners, some waiting through the night, queued for hours Thursday to pay their last respects to Queen Elizabeth II on the first full day of her coffin lying in state.

Britain’s longest-serving monarch, who died a week ago aged 96 after 70 years on the throne, is at rest in Westminster Hall ahead of Monday’s state funeral at neighbouring Westminster Abbey.

After lining up for two days, the first public mourners were allowed into the vast mediaeval hall late Wednesday afternoon, following the coffin’s ceremonial procession through the packed streets of central London from Buckingham Palace.

Since then, a steady stream of people has continued to file past the queen’s casket, with thousands waiting through the night for their chance to say farewell to the country’s figurehead.

Her casket, mounted on a platform, is draped in the Royal Standard flag and bearing the Imperial State Crown plus her ceremonial Orb and Sceptre, with tall, flickering candles standing at each corner.

“It was very beautiful, moving,” said Sarah Mellor, noting it was also very quiet inside the cavernous hall, the oldest part of Britain’s centuries-old parliament.

“There is the sense of history here,” added the visibly moved Mellor, who had queued for seven hours.

The sombre atmosphere was completed with guards in ceremonial uniform posted around the podium in a constant vigil.

One fainted overnight, in a sign of the toll standing vigil can take.

– ‘Real Charles fan’ –

All Britain’s national newspapers carried poignant pictures of the historic scene on their covers.

“Nation’s turn to say farewell,” the Daily Telegraph headlined on its front page.

Mourners marked their moment in front of the coffin in various ways, from bows or curtsies to the sign of the cross or by simply removing their hats.

Some wiped away tears with tissues. Others brought infants in pushchairs. Old soldiers stopped and gave one last salute to their former commander-in-chief.

The coffin had been taken to parliament from Buckingham Palace Wednesday to the strains of a military band playing funeral marches.

King Charles III led the royal family in procession behind a horse-drawn gun carriage bearing the casket.

Parliament’s Big Ben bell tolled out each minute as the casket passed in front of hushed crowds lining the route, ahead of the lying-in-state beginning at 5:00 pm (1600 GMT).  

By late morning Thursday, the queue had grown to 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometres) along the south bank of the Thames river, with people set to wait through the day to see the late sovereign.

Organisers have prepared up to 10 miles of queuing infrastructure, with expectations hundreds of thousands will participate, in particular over the weekend.

Musician Jacqui Smith, among those in line overnight, was sad but enthusiastic about the reign of the new king.

“I’ve been waiting for it for a long time,” she told AFP from Lambeth Bridge, within sight of Westminster Hall. “I love the queen, but I’m a real Charles fan.”

– Royal visits –

After nearly 110 hours lying-in-state and 10 full days of national mourning, the commemorations for the queen will culminate with her state funeral Monday.

Before that, senior royals are continuing to visit places around the country.

On Thursday, William and wife Kate travel to Sandringham, the family’s private winter retreat in eastern England to view the floral tributes left by members of the public at the Norwich Gates.

Charles, 73, was crowned Prince of Wales by his mother in 1958 and on his first full day as monarch Friday bestowed the title on his eldest son.

The historic title has been given to the heir apparent since the start of the 14th century.

Thursday’s visit will be the first official engagement conducted by the new Prince and Princess of Wales.

Meanwhile Elizabeth’s youngest son Prince Edward, 58, and his wife Sophie, visit Manchester in northwest England to view the civic book of condolence at the city’s central library.

They were also viewing the floral tributes in St Ann’s Square and meet members of the public who are volunteering at the site, and light a candle in memory of the queen at Manchester Cathedral.

The late monarch’s elaborate funeral will see hundreds of world leaders and global royalty pack the historic Westminster Abbey in the heart of the British capital.

US President Joe Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Australia’s leader Anthony Albanese and France’s Emmanuel Macron have all confirmed their attendance, as have Japan’s Emperor Naruhito and numerous other royals.